DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1310#0018
OF THE WORLD'S INDUSTRY. 33
The arrangements for the reception and placing of the articles to be sent to the
Exhibition necessarily required much calculation. The commissioners, anxious to treat
their foreign contributors with all the courtesy and hospitality due to invited guests,
resolved to appropriate to their use one-half of the exhibiting space of the whole
building; being more than the entire ground which Prance occupied for her own
Exhibition in 1844 and 1845. Over the admission of British articles, the Commissioners
reserved to themselves full power of control; but the power of admitting foreign articles
was confided absolutely to the authority of the country by which they might be sent: they
were to be allowed to enter any of our ports free of examination or duties, and every-
thing in the shape of gratuity or subscription, from any foreigner whatever, resident at
home or abroad, was scrupulously discouraged and refused: in short, everything was
done in harmony with the noble sentiments which Prince Albert had uttered at the
splendid banquet given by the Lord Mayor of London, in honour of the projected
Exhibition, to such of the chief magistrates of the various towns, cities and boroughs
throughout the United Kingdom, as were enabled to avail themselves of his munificent
invitation—sentiments which deserved to be written in letters of gold; and as they
were not framed for that occasion only, but will apply equally to future ages, we will not
deny ourselves the pleasure of laying a part of them before our readers :—
" I conceive it to be the duty of every educated person closely to watch and study the time in which he
lives, and, as far as in him lies, to add his humble mite of individual exertion, to further the accomplish-
ment of what he believes Providence to have ordained.
" Nobody, however, who has paid any attention to the particular features of our present era, will doubt
for a moment that we are living at a period of most wonderful transition, which tends rapidly to accomplish
that great end—to which indeed all history points—the realization of the unity of mankind: not a
unity which breaks down the limits and levels the peculiar characteristics of the different nations of the
earth, but rather a unity, the results and product of those very national varieties and antagonistic qualities.
" The distances which separated the different nations and parts of the globe, are gradually vanishing
before the achievements of modern invention, and we can traverse them with incredible speed; the
languages of all nations are known, and their acquirement placed within the reach of everbody; thought
is communicated with the rapidity, and even by the power of lightning. On the other hand, the great
principle of the division of labour, which may be called the moving power of civilization, is being extended
to all branches of science, industry, and art. Whilst formerly the greatest mental energies strove at
universal knowledge, and that knowledge was confined to few, now they are directed to specialities, and
in these again even to the minutest points. Moreover, the knowledge now acquired becomes at once the
property of the community at large: whilst, formerly, discovery was wrapt in secrecy, it results from the
publicity of the present day, that no sooner is a discovery or invention made, than it is already improved
upon and surpassed by competing efforts. The products of all quarters of the globe are placed at our
disposal, and we have only to choose which is the best and cheapest for our purposes, and the powers of
production are entrusted to the stimulus of competition and capital.
" Thus man is approaching a more complete fulfilment of that great and sacred mission which he has to*
perform in this world. His reason being created after the image of God, he has to use it to discover the
laws by which the Almighty governs his creation, and, by making these laws his standard of action/to
conquer nature to his use—himself a divine instrument. Science discovers these laws of power, motion,
and transformation; industry applies them to the raw matter which the earth yields us in abundance, but
which becomes valuable only by Knowledge; art teaches us the immutable laws of beauty and symmetry,
and gives to our productions forms in accordance with them. The Exhibition of 1851 is to give us a true
test and a living picture of the point of development at which the whole of mankind has arrived in this
great task, and a new starting-point, from which all nations will be able to direct their future exertions.
I confidently hope that the first impression which the view of this vast collection will produce on the
spectator, will be that of deep thankfulness to the Almighty, for the blessings which he has bestowed upon
us already here below; and the second, the conviction that they can only be realized in proportion to the
help which we are prepared to render to each other; therefore, only by peace, love, and ready assistance,
not only between individuals, but between the nations of the earth. This being my conviction, I must be
highly gratified to see here assembled the magistrates of all important towns of this realm, sinking all
their local, and possibly political differences—the representatives of the different political opinions of this
country, and the representatives of the different foreign nations—to-day representing only one interest."
The arrangements for the reception and placing of the articles to be sent to the
Exhibition necessarily required much calculation. The commissioners, anxious to treat
their foreign contributors with all the courtesy and hospitality due to invited guests,
resolved to appropriate to their use one-half of the exhibiting space of the whole
building; being more than the entire ground which Prance occupied for her own
Exhibition in 1844 and 1845. Over the admission of British articles, the Commissioners
reserved to themselves full power of control; but the power of admitting foreign articles
was confided absolutely to the authority of the country by which they might be sent: they
were to be allowed to enter any of our ports free of examination or duties, and every-
thing in the shape of gratuity or subscription, from any foreigner whatever, resident at
home or abroad, was scrupulously discouraged and refused: in short, everything was
done in harmony with the noble sentiments which Prince Albert had uttered at the
splendid banquet given by the Lord Mayor of London, in honour of the projected
Exhibition, to such of the chief magistrates of the various towns, cities and boroughs
throughout the United Kingdom, as were enabled to avail themselves of his munificent
invitation—sentiments which deserved to be written in letters of gold; and as they
were not framed for that occasion only, but will apply equally to future ages, we will not
deny ourselves the pleasure of laying a part of them before our readers :—
" I conceive it to be the duty of every educated person closely to watch and study the time in which he
lives, and, as far as in him lies, to add his humble mite of individual exertion, to further the accomplish-
ment of what he believes Providence to have ordained.
" Nobody, however, who has paid any attention to the particular features of our present era, will doubt
for a moment that we are living at a period of most wonderful transition, which tends rapidly to accomplish
that great end—to which indeed all history points—the realization of the unity of mankind: not a
unity which breaks down the limits and levels the peculiar characteristics of the different nations of the
earth, but rather a unity, the results and product of those very national varieties and antagonistic qualities.
" The distances which separated the different nations and parts of the globe, are gradually vanishing
before the achievements of modern invention, and we can traverse them with incredible speed; the
languages of all nations are known, and their acquirement placed within the reach of everbody; thought
is communicated with the rapidity, and even by the power of lightning. On the other hand, the great
principle of the division of labour, which may be called the moving power of civilization, is being extended
to all branches of science, industry, and art. Whilst formerly the greatest mental energies strove at
universal knowledge, and that knowledge was confined to few, now they are directed to specialities, and
in these again even to the minutest points. Moreover, the knowledge now acquired becomes at once the
property of the community at large: whilst, formerly, discovery was wrapt in secrecy, it results from the
publicity of the present day, that no sooner is a discovery or invention made, than it is already improved
upon and surpassed by competing efforts. The products of all quarters of the globe are placed at our
disposal, and we have only to choose which is the best and cheapest for our purposes, and the powers of
production are entrusted to the stimulus of competition and capital.
" Thus man is approaching a more complete fulfilment of that great and sacred mission which he has to*
perform in this world. His reason being created after the image of God, he has to use it to discover the
laws by which the Almighty governs his creation, and, by making these laws his standard of action/to
conquer nature to his use—himself a divine instrument. Science discovers these laws of power, motion,
and transformation; industry applies them to the raw matter which the earth yields us in abundance, but
which becomes valuable only by Knowledge; art teaches us the immutable laws of beauty and symmetry,
and gives to our productions forms in accordance with them. The Exhibition of 1851 is to give us a true
test and a living picture of the point of development at which the whole of mankind has arrived in this
great task, and a new starting-point, from which all nations will be able to direct their future exertions.
I confidently hope that the first impression which the view of this vast collection will produce on the
spectator, will be that of deep thankfulness to the Almighty, for the blessings which he has bestowed upon
us already here below; and the second, the conviction that they can only be realized in proportion to the
help which we are prepared to render to each other; therefore, only by peace, love, and ready assistance,
not only between individuals, but between the nations of the earth. This being my conviction, I must be
highly gratified to see here assembled the magistrates of all important towns of this realm, sinking all
their local, and possibly political differences—the representatives of the different political opinions of this
country, and the representatives of the different foreign nations—to-day representing only one interest."